WHAT STORY DO WE BEGIN WITH FIRST?

Agree with him or not, you have to agree about the passion of R. E. Anderson! Our lives have been strongly influenced and our keen interest in the geosciences made even keener through our numerous interactions with Ernie, over some three decades. Early on, Ernie revolutionized an approach to thinking about extensional processes in continental lithosphere, in particular the Basin and Range Province, by documenting the importance of low angle normal faulting in the extension of what is now well known as the Colorado River extensional corridor. His work has blended numerous approaches to understanding how extension began and evolved in the Basin and Range Province, and, by recounting past experiences with some science thrown in, we emphasize the extreme pleasure being involved in some of these efforts has brought. The senior author of this abstract first interacted with Ernie in the very early 80's while at the Colorado School of Mines. Ernie walked into my office with a box full of oriented samples of the Tuff of Hoover Dam, saying something to the effect of, “I hear you have a paleomagnetism laboratory here; well, I have a problem and I need your help!” Years later, the senior author, and his students, are still trying to help. A word of advice, however, never borrow Ernie's boat to cross Lake Mead in mid-March. His genuine and enthusiastic interest in several PhD students using paleomagnetism to solve problems in structural geology and tectonics, including Mark Hudson, Jim Faulds, Tim Wawrzyniec, Steve Harlan, and Mike Petronis, has been remarkable, and greatly appreciated.